UConn Women Overcome Slow Start, Rout Temple

PHILADELPHIA — Watching UConn flatten East Carolina last week at the XL Center, the untrained eye could have concluded that all was well with the major brand name of women's college basketball.

As it turns out, that would have been a premature assumption based solely on the numbers, which is not the way Geno Auriemma operates. His image may have been polished by statistics. But his program was built on substance.

And that is just one of the major distinctions between this Hall of Fame coach and the butchers, bakers and prognosticators that follow every bounce his program takes.

Super Sunday's 83-49 win over Temple (10-12, 6-3) at McGonigle Hall may have looked like your average run-of-the-mill American Athletic Conference rout, similar in so many ways to the conference runaways preceding the Huskies' 28th consecutive regular season victory in league play. Remember, UConn (20-1, 10-0) won its first nine AAC games this season by an average of 50 points.

But it wasn't. For long stretches it was tough, the Owls landing some hard blows to a midsection hardly touched by an opponent this season.

"It was the kind of game we don't get a chance to play in that often," Auriemma said. "It was competitive for a short period of time and I thought that was very good."

"Was she here?" Geno Auriemma joked. "I wish I had known. She could have come...

Auriemma's mind likely wondered back to last week. In the win over East Carolina, he busied himself making mental notes about things he didn't like.

"There's always something," Auriemma said. "The minute you sit there and say, 'We've got everything covered' is when the problems arise. … I jotted down in my mind [during the East Carolina game] and then told [his assistants] at least four or five things that I wanted to spend a lot of time on before [Temple].

"The actual end of the game doesn't mean as much as the things we are able to pick out [to improve on]."

Breanna Stewart led five UConn scorers in double figures Sunday with 17 points, 15 coming in the first half. But she had no offensive rebounds, even though UConn missed 32 shots.

"She had as many as a dead person," Auriemma said.

Morgan Tuck added 15 points and seven rebounds. But the normally accurate duo was a combined 13-for-34 from the field.

Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis had 12 points, while Moriah Jefferson contributed 11 points and four steals. And Kiah Stokes continued her assault on UConn's single-season blocks record (131) with another seven. She now has 100.

The Huskies play Cincinnati and Memphis before facing No. 1 South Carolina next Monday at Gampel Pavilion in this year's Game of the Century.

"When March comes, we will be ready," Auriemma said. "That's the best thing I can say about our team. You like to think, as the season moves along, that you will get better and better. And we have."

This win, UConn's 19th straight, was the 899th of his career. On Tuesday against the Bearcats at the XL Center, Auriemma will likely become just the sixth NCAA Division I women's basketball coach to reach 900. And that will place him 198 away from the ultimate summit, Pat Summitt.

The loss was somewhat of a soggy appetizer for Temple coach Tonya Cardoza to swallow before the start of the Super Bowl. The former UConn assistant is a big Patriots fan.

The Owls, who had won three in a row, were 19 of 67 from the floor. Erica Covile, who scored 10, was 5-for-23 in 34 minutes. And the Owls were only 4 of 23 on three-pointers.

But it wasn't easy for the Huskies. Temple has played UConn tougher than any team in the AAC this season, and the Owls jumped out to a 5-0 lead, the largest advantage of any kind an AAC team has held over UConn this season. The Huskies have barely trailed in any league game, other than a 2-0 deficit in Wednesday's 55-point victory over East Carolina.

"After that, your team is kind of on a high," Temple's Tyonna Atkinson said. "I mean, you are playing UConn. And you have the lead against — UConn. I believe we competed very well."

With 17:36 to play in the half, the Owls still led, 8-4, after a three-pointer by Alliya Butts (team-high 12 points). And Temple was feeling it.

It was at this point that UConn gained its footing. The Huskies went on an 8-0 run to take a 12-8 lead with 13:18 left before halftime. And from there, despite resistance from the determined Owls, the lead began to grow.

A pair of three-pointers from Saniya Chong and Kia Nurse — the Huskies had seven threes in the first half — pushed the lead to 32-19. And then with 25.1 seconds to play in the half, Jefferson made a steal and was fouled going in for a layup. She made one of two free throws to give the Huskies their first 20-point lead (48-28).

Still, there was quite a bit different about this game in comparison to the last time the Huskies played Temple on Jan. 14 at Gampel Pavilion. In that game, the Owls were totally overwhelmed in the post, outscored 56-8 and outrebounded, 58-32. That was not the case this time.

Despite trailing 48-30 at the half, the Owls were outrebounding UConn (21-20) and had more points in the paint (14-12). The Huskies finished with only one more rebound than the Owls (41-40) and were outscored 28-22 in the paint. Temple's problem came with the 20 turnovers that the Huskies turned into 24 points.

"We had a lot of confidence," Cardoza said. "We were hanging right with them. They are so good. We tried to do something different against them, like make them shoot from the outside. They missed them early. But we knew eventually they would start to fall."